Folklore/FolksSoul demo impressions

Friday the Japanese PlayStation Store was treated to a demo of FolksSoul (called Folklore in the U.S.). Having gotten my hands on the demo I was pleasantly surprised how well the game is shaping out to be. Since everything was in Japanese I can’t tell you the story so far but I tell whats most important at the moment and that is the gameplay, graphics and sound.

Gameplay

This was a surprise hit at Sony’s Gamers Day and I can see why. You have two characters to choice from which is a woman named Ellen and a man named Keats. For the most part they are the same but they control different monsters and Keats has a demon form where his attack powers double.

The main draw of this game is that you don’t attack with weapons of any sort but with the souls of monster you capture on your journey. You first weaken them and when the time is right you use the Sixaxis and pull back tearing their soul from their body. The use of Sixaxis here has to be the most natural use of the Sixaxis so far. It doesn’t feel gimmicky at all and the tougher monsters require a bit more work when trying to yank their soul but it all feels right.

You have a quick dash to avoid attacks which cames in handy against more powerful monsters in the demo. To stop this from being a simple hack and slash you have something called MC points that deplete each time you use a monsters spirit to attack. The more powerful the monster the more MC points they use. Your points comeback rather quickly so it isn’t something that diminishes the gameplay but adds a bit more strategy to it. You can charge some monsters attacks too making them more powerful in the process.

Keats has a TP gauge for his demon form which grows each time you consume a monsters soul. To unleash it you press in both thumbsticks and you unleash hell as you see fit.

You assign a monster to one of the face buttons to use them. The more of souls of the same creature you collect you add new abilities to them like a higher combos or less MC consumption. Also you can steal more then one soul at a time which yields higher experience points.

Graphics

The game looks good but they do a great job creating an incredible sense of atmosphere. This game isn’t going to blow you away graphically but with the colors they use and the way it is presented it doesn’t really matter. One of things I did notice is that at a part where your able to look at into the ocean it looks liked crap and I hope that’s something they pay more attention too.

Sound

The sound simply to put it is great. The music I heard so far is great fits the game completely. Simple effects like the wind blowing, birds chirping and wolfs howling at night all adds to the atmosphere I mentioned above. I have nothing bad to say about this area.

Conclusion

I think this could be a sleeper hit. After having playing the demo for a while now I still want more and can’t wait to see how the story shapes out. I advise you put this game on your radar, it fantastic so far. With over a hundred different monsters in the final game I think this is going to be big hit. This demo guaranteed my purchase of this title, hopefully they will release a U.S demo and you can play this for yourself if you hadn’t already.